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Debbie Stollery

Let us create them in our image

Our series of blogs on the spirituality of synodality continues. With each blog I write and each link I review, I find myself more completely convinced that the culture change we will undergo as we become synodal will be marked most distinctly by our re-capturing of our spiritual selves, individually, but more importantly, communally. We will indeed be on an intentional journey to fulfill our baptismal responsibility to help one another grow in holiness...in the ways that will enable us to be "different" because we listen to and follow the Holy Spirit who leads us to communion, mission and participation.


Photo Credit Jennifer Farrant (c) 2024


If you've been following much at all about the Synod on Synodality, you have heard a lot about listening, the peripheries and marginalized, inclusion, welcome, unity in diversity, accompaniment, and relationships. Here are two deeply spiritual and related concepts that tie all of these together: human beings, all of us, are created in God's image and therefore hold the Spirit of God within us; and, the baptized Christian has had that Spirit freed from sin and linked intentionally, overtly, to God through Christ. Imago Dei and baptismal identity/dignity...the Church's language for expressing this amazing reality.


It's easy to nod assent to these ideas without examining the implications of them. A synodal Church, however, is explicit in her behaviors so that She reveres these Truths not just in concept, but in action. It's fair to say She has not always remembered them and has therefore embraced some practices and endorsed some others that, when viewed in light of these Truths, are not just incompatible...they are opposed. The Synod on Synodality continues to grapple with the ways the Spirit is revealing this to the delegates and to the rest of us, making it clear that part of the work of living out the spiritual Truths of imago Dei and baptismal dignity includes repentance, restitution and reform of the practices that destroy human beings' inherent dignity. While that could be the subject of another set of blogs, these are about synodal spirituality, so let me turn instead to some of the foundational practices of a synodal Church that give flesh to these spiritual Truths.


First is a reclamation of the dignity every human being has because they are a piece of the image of God, the imago Dei in which we are all made. As the psalmist says, we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). ALL OF US. And God desires that every human being be on the journey toward an eternal home with God. Hence, you find in the synodal documents a call to walk together with all humankind...not just Roman Catholics, or American Catholics or fellow parishioners, but with all of humanity. The first assembly of the Synod on Synodality began with a grand ecumenical prayer service, for through the waters of baptism, we are all one body in Christ (Galatians 3:28-29). We are all walking this earth together. That is our fundamental identity: human beings, made in God's image, imbued with God's Spirit, some of whom choose to covenant to live out this reality through baptism.


This understanding provides the rationale for the call to head out to the margins, the peripheries of our comfort zones, there to encounter human beings with a different experience of what it means to be alive today than those in the center of Catholic parish life. The hopes, dreams, joys and sorrows of these people, people that we encounter with listening hearts and minds, these are the concerns of the Church. Read the first paragraph of the Vatican II document The Church in the Modern World to hear this truth. Understand that this is what underlies the synodal practice of listening deeply to one another using Conversations in the Spirit and Discernment in Common, but also the synodal mandate to be a missionary disciple who takes the healing touch of Christ through encounter and listening OUT...to those beloved of God who do not draw near to us.


Towards a Spirituality for Synodality reminds us that from the initial Preparatory Document until now, a synodal Church has been described as a listening Church. "It is attentive to all the modalities of God's self-communication. It is attentive to the movements of the world and the many voices that are raised in lament, protest, supplication and witness. A listening Church is attentive to the many different narratives of lives, cultures and peoples. One could say it is a place of narrative hospitality"(SS 25-26). Well, it can be that place, but right now synod delegates are hearing first hand from those for whom the Church has NOT been a place where their stories, their realities, their lives have been welcomed. And so arises the call to a conversion of attitude and practice that flows from enfleshing the spiritual attitude of imago Dei and of baptismal dignity.


One of the great mysteries of the Spirit life is how heart can connect to heart, how that imago Dei in each of us reaches out seeking communion with that same Spirit in another. Making space for this mysterious, but very real, connection is part of the work of a synodal Church. "When we 'listen', we are attuned to the voice that lies within the voice that we hear, that is the deep voice of the Spirit. Often this voice is not accessible in words, but it speaks to us nonetheless, 'heart calling to heart' in the silent music of God. Listening at such a level requires a freedom to be available to whatever the Spirit is asking or wherever the Spirit is leading. It will also require us to listen with the intelligence and understanding of faith, so that Christ and the Word of God become the school in which we learn to recognize, to understand and to judge what we have heard" (SS,26). Why does this happen? Why is it necessary to listen heart-to-heart? Why do we listen with lenses shaped by what we have learned and by what we believe? Because each human being is an image of God, inherently deserving of this reverence. And because, every baptized person belongs to the Body of Christ in an intentional way, and therefore has a right to reverent, respectful listening.


Out of this spirituality and of the narrative hospitality practiced by the delegates to the first assembly of the Synod on Synodality comes this, in the Instrumentum laboris for the second Assembly: "The journey so far has led to the recognition that a synodal Church is a Church that listens, is capable of welcoming and accompanying, and is perceived as home and family. A need emerges on all continents concerning people who, for different reasons, are or feel excluded or on the margins of the ecclesial community or who struggle to find full recognition of their dignity and gifts within it. This lack of welcome leaves them feeling rejected, hinders their journey of faith and encounter with the Lord, and deprives the Church of their contribution to mission" (33).


"It seems appropriate to create a recognised and properly instituted ministry of listening and accompaniment, which would make this characteristic feature of a synodal Church an enduring and tangible reality. An 'open door' of the community is needed, allowing people to enter without feeling threatened or judged. The forms of exercising this ministry will need to adapt to local circumstances according to the diversity of experiences, structures, social contexts and available resources. This opens up a space for discernment to take place at the local level, with the involvement of national or continental Episcopal Conferences. However, the presence of a specific ministry does not mean reserving the commitment to listening to these ministers alone. On the contrary, it has a prophetic character. On the one hand, it emphasises that listening and accompaniment are an ordinary dimension of the life of a synodal Church, which in different ways engages all the baptised and in which all communities are invited to grow; on the other hand, it reminds us that listening and accompaniment is an ecclesial service, not a personal initiative, the value of which is thus recognised. This awareness is a mature fruit of the synodal process" (34). This is also an outward sign of how deeply we want to honor the imago Dei in each person and to especially welcome the baptized to make their home among us.


Finally, one last word about the enormous call to unpack what it means to be baptized that is part of embracing a synodal identity/culture. I'd like to make just one point about how important baptism is in terms of becoming a synodal Church. There's a reason discerning assemblies are to be comprised of the baptized. It's because we who have been baptized have covenanted to live as children of God, attuned to the spirit of God within us, repentant, always becoming more of what Christ calls us to be, and imbued with the Holy Spirit, so that we can in fact hear that Spirit speak. We have been formed by repeated encounters with the Spirit of Christ in the liturgy, and we have hearts capable of burning within us, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, when we hear the Lord speak. Our baptism has done all of that, and a synodal Church intends to embrace that reality. Baptism matters.


So there you have a little more of why synodality is a spiritual practice, and how some of the practices we are associating with synodality are important. Is there more? Yes, but I am hopeful that these blogs are helping you as much as they are helping me to see the inherent "logic" of the Synod, the call to conversion this is, and the ways in which these practices will allow the Holy Spirit to transform the Church.


Want to learn a little more about this? Read "Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God" by the International Theological Commission.


Interested in checking your basic listening skills? Check this inventory out!


Next week...a little more about baptismal dignity.


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